


Returns

by orphan_account



Category: Castlevania 白夜の協奏曲 | Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon Person of Color, Castlevania Secret Santa 2016, M/M, Mild Language, POV Second Person, Post-Canon, Trauma narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-03 18:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8724724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A post-canon look at the relationship between Juste and Maxim.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For oilmun. Part of the 2016 Castlevania Secret Santa. Hope you enjoy this!

It's not what you can call love. That you know.

(Just like you know what happened in the castle. What happens, what will happen. A circle unbroken.)

In the morning, when the darkness retreats along with the dread that sleep incurs, you search his face. For the man you cannot escape. 

 A breakfast spread covers the table. Maxim's work. Eggs, thick black bread, milk. Fresh raspberries gathered from the thicket between your houses. Smiling at you, a forced cheeriness, Maxim begins to butter a slice. And unease sits alongside this display of home and normalcy.

Your grandfather never told you what it meant to return. How the bare trees look just like the jutting, spiraling bones of _that thing_ chained in the basement of the castle. _The thing_ that screamed and screamed—

The man you nearly killed looks back, a question on his face that he cannot ask. Not now, because your friendship—your love—has become so strained. 

Soft curls against the pale of your hand, as he runs your hand across the curve of his face.

"Juste."

You turn away, ashamed, alone in this fear you cannot escape. And he slides a plate towards you. 

"You'll lose your strength if you don't eat."

 "I should be taking care of you," you manage. Half succeeding in reviving that joking tone to your voice. And yet, already there is a line between who you are and who you have been. "Your wounds..."

"My wounds are of little import to me." Guilt overtakes him, drooping his wide shoulders, lowering his head, ever so slightly. One of the villagers might not recognize shame in his form, but you, you know better.

Perhaps you are not so alone, then. And savoring the ripeness of the berries, how they break under a little pressure, you begin to relax. The tension leaving your back and shoulders. 

One day, your son, or your grandson, will search the horizons for the castle that appears once every century. A trial for a hero. And what will you tell him? It's a lie, a goddamned lie, that you leave a boy and return a man. You leave a boy and return half a boy, with a head full of horrors. Of terrible choices and broken promises. And for a moment, you wonder if you are still there, wandering the hallways that ooze blood and horrors. The crooked paintings and sunken corridors.  

You glance in the direction of Lydie's bed chambers. She doesn't know. You can't bring yourself to tell her, for every time you look at her, you catch the traces of the incense that burned over her, as Maxim loomed over her, blood on his teeth.  

"Is she still..."

"Sleeping off her fright," Maxim finishes. "And you ought to rest as well."

And fear of what might inhabit your dreams grips you. Your lips part to tell him the horrors that have taken hold of your head, but the words die in your throat.  

Maxim covers your hand in his, and gratitude at this show of humanity numbs your throat. You clutch his hand, and you want to ask if he sees them too, but his answer is in the dark circles of his eyes, the way his shoulders droop. And you're ashamed for fearing him, when he now fears himself. 

 His palms have become worn with years of training, but are still so warm with life. And you give him a shy smile, that he, gratefully, returns. 

That dreadful aloneness evaporates.

And for now, just now, it's enough. Your grandfather never told you how to return, and he never will. But you'll find it for yourself, the light of life. A series of moments, each farther and farther from what happened, which may not erase what happened, but which persist despite of it. 

What you have with him you cannot call love, because it reaches deeper than an infatuation. He shares the wilderness of your soul, the wildness of your heart. You are his, and he is yours. And as you grasp his hand, you know that it is a constant. 

And you'll dream of that castle again, tonight. As you have done every night since. Dream of the way the sky spun along the walkways, like molten glass, like the silken thread of a spider. Dream of the trees in the courtyard that held the musty smell of forgotten books. And how the water tasted of iron. Paintings plucked from time, presiding over horrors. Curtains made of a fabric not unlike velvet, that no one can replicate. Gems that tumble from walls.   

From the west, smoke from the surrounding homes seeps past the window, heavy with warmth and death, and you are keenly aware that, for now, until you must return the bones you have been lent, you are _alive_.  With all the possibilities and pain that such a state entails. You are alive, and he is alive, and that is enough. For now, it is enough. 

But there is one who does not yet live—the one who will carry on. 

What will you tell him?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear from you!


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